Learning Disabilities

“Learning Disabilities”:
The Struggling Learner

By Toni Hager 2000

Your toddler or preschool child loved to learn. His mind seemed to be a sponge soaking up everything you taught him. He enjoyed books and you read to him often everyday. He could tell you every breed of dinosaur, recite the alphabet song, say his numbers and knew his colors BEFORE he started school. Then at age six he entered school. Before long he hated school. He hated learning. There were days he was physically sick because of it. You wonder what happened? Then you received notes from his teacher that things aren’t going well. “He misbehaves. He can’t sit still. He can’t follow directions. Can’t… can’t… can’t! I can’t stand can’t!

Finally, you were ‘invited’ to a meeting to evaluate him for “special education’. At the meeting no one seemed to be on your side or have anything positive to say about your child. Using their big words and fast-talking you felt lost . . . like they were ganging up on you. You agreed to whatever they said. After all, they are the trained experts and know what is best for your child, right?

They come up with an IEP.
Everything is under control and your child’s problems are
going to go away . . .
but they don’t !

If you are reading this article those problems haven’t gone away. If anything, they may seem much worse. Why? You believe your child is smart. It seems as though he is stuck, like his intelligence is imprisoned. Why?

Let me start at the beginning. You will need to understand some of the neurological ‘root causes’ causing your child’s struggles and what can be done to eliminate them.

“Root causes” of learning disabilities

The brain’s job is to receive, process, store and utilize information from its environment. Sometimes, due to a variety of circumstances, developmental steps have been skipped or interrupted causing inefficiencies in “normal” development

This can result in such learning and attending problems as Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, short-attention span, “fall through the crack kids”, “just doesn’t seem to get it…”, auditory processing disorder and a variety of other labels. These “labels” are symptoms of neurological dysorganization. They are not diseases, nor is anything organically wrong with the brain. As my daughter says, “it just needs a ‘tune-up’.”

The good news is… we can go back to the skipped or interrupted developmental steps and reorganize the brain eliminating the symptoms. This will allow the child to reach his or her full potential.

What some possible causes of this
neurological dysorganization?

1. VISUAL:

There are three main areas of concerns involving the visual channel. Convergence and tracting, central/near point vision and strabismus. The eyes must work together in a coordinated manner, referred to a visual pursuit. Each eye is controlled by three (3) sets of two (2) muscles and four (4) cranial nerves. These muscles work by one muscle opposing the pull of its combating buddy. They include 1.) pull the eye upward, 2.) pull the eye downward, 3.) pull the eye out—away from the nose, 4.) pull the eye in toward the nose, 5.) pull the eye out and up, and 6.) pull the eye out and down. Thus, for one eye to move smoothly, it requires the cooperation and coordination of six muscles all working together. The eyes work as a pair; therefore, require twelve muscles to get along and work as a team.

When one muscle is weak and doesn’t “pull his load” the eyes may move in a jerky motion. This causes the child to frequently lose his or her place while reading. When this happens the child may pause until he finds his place again, (which slows down his reading speed); omit words but continue to read; or substitute his own word and continue reading. Omitting or substituting a word frequently changes the meaning of what is being read, causing comprehension to suffer.

You say, but my child has been to the Ophthalmologist. Most eye exams don’t test convergence, nor do most ophthalmologist treat it. CAN LEARN programs can recommend visual eye exercises and other activities that can eliminate the problem.

Convergence is the ability of the two eyes to work in a synchronously together. We can test for convergence with a pen light directly in front of the eyes one foot away. The light should produce a reflection of itself exactly in the center of both eyes. If the reflection is to the inside of the pupil, the eye is looking outward or divergent strabismus or exotropia. If the reflection is to the outside of the pupil, the eye is looking inward or convergence strabismus or entropia. A strabismus is when the eye turns in either direction and is common among school-age children.

What happened to cause these issues?

At birth, a baby’s eyes aren’t yet able to converge properly. Convergence must develop in vision and does so during the creeping (hands and knees) stage of mobility. Early attempts at convergence are inefficient and are called yolking or accidental convergence. In order for the eyes to learn to converge. The child must fixate on an object at a fixed distance from the eyes. While the child is crawling on their tummy, there is no fixed object for them to see. He can look out at varying distances. If the child misses creeping on his hands and knees and either sits, stands or walk, he again sees at varying distances with no fixed target. Developmentally, only creeping on the hands and knees give the eyes the ever present fixed target they need. Where IS a fixed distance? On the floor!!

Individuals with a strabismus needs to go back to this developmental stage and creep a few minutes every day for a few months to eliminate it.

When the eyes do not converge, each eye may see a separate image, causing double vision or diplopia. It’s like looking at a TV with poor antenna causing a ghost or double image. Double vision confuses the brain. To stop the confusion the child may start squinting. The name for strabismus was “squint” because many children squinted to eliminate double vision. The other way the brain will stop the double vision is by the cortex of the brain suppressing the vision in one eye. If one eye is continually squinted or suppressed it will eventually, because of lack of use, become a weak (lazy) eye which is called amblyopia. This happens in about 5% of all children.

Lens and/or surgery are generally prescribed for strabismus. Neither should be considered until the child has properly completed the creeping stage and until proper eye exercises have been tried for a reasonable period. Surgery for strabismus has a poor success rate even when done early. If the strabotomy has been done follow-up exercises and creeping can help improve the results.

Some learning problems related to strabismus:

Unable to keep eye contact,
Skip words or line while reading
Mix columns in math

Many children have undeveloped Macular vision, central field of vision. They see more of what is to the side than directly in front of their face. These are the kids who while looking straight ahead can tell you the color of the car beside yours. They skip words, sentences or even whole paragraphs while reading. They can’t find an item they ‘appear’ to be looking straight at. They dislike activities such as watching TV, reading or any close work or hobbies. CAN LEARN uses a variety of specific exercises to improve convergence. Good convergence leads to good depth perception. Next let’s look at processing.

2. PROCESSING

a. Short-term memory : The brain’s ability to understand, interpret and categorize information taken in from its environment.

The brain must be able to hold enough individual pieces of information together in order to do “something” with it. Generally, this amount is age related until age seven (7). At age seven, or older, the individual should be able to hold seven separate pieces of information together. Unfortunately, many individuals are only holding 4 or 5 pieces together. This affects everything from learning, behavior, making decisions, thinking at a higher level, dressing appropriately for the day’s weather, everything. Most 4 or 5 yr. olds have tantrums when overwhelmed or out of control… so does an 8,10, 15 year old or adult with a digit span of four or five! Most 4 or 5 yr. olds are unable to read well or do higher level math… neither can an 8, 10, 15 yr. Old or adult with digit spans on only four or five! Short-term memory can be improved.

Many children have a history of ear infections or fluid against the eardrum. This affects the quality and consistency of range and tones the brain’s ear hears. This inconsistency and poor quality slows, interrupts or halts the receptive language. Children pronounce their words the way their brain heard them. Therefore, inconsistent and poor quality hearing affects the expressive language as well. The brain can be retrained to hear the wide variety of tones and improve hearing, listening and speech issues. These issues will all be addressed as part of the evaluation process. At this time, CAN LEARN utilizes a excellent eight-week auditory training in-home program. You will be given the necessary training to implement the program. An entire article has been designated to this topic, you’ll find it on the website www.kidscanlearn.net

Learning challenges due to processing problems

Trouble with phonics,
Directions
Distractible
“Just” didn’t hear you (can become a habit)
Speaking and writing skills
BEHAVIOR (behavior article coming soon, check website)

b) Cortical Hemispheric Dominance: Long term memory: Dominance is the top level of brain function. Establishing a dominant hemisphere, or side of the brain completes neurological organization.

A person’s dominance is that of which hand they write with. Handiness is “hard wired” whereas the eye or ear dominance can change with each ear infection or vision disorder. A note on left handers forced to become right handed later. A right-handed person’s dominant side of the brain is in the left hemisphere. Everything crosses over in the brain. Therefore, a completely organized child should be right-handed, right-footed, right-eared and right-eyed; or vise versa if left-handed.

When a child neglects to take in information from one side and place it in one hemisphere he is not establishing firm pathways into the brain. The child cannot efficiently process that information.

Think of your brain as a room full of file cabinets. If your child is right-handed everything they see or hear should be stored in the left “file cabinet”. If ear infections, near-sightedness or other visual disorder cause the child to use their left eye or ear then the incoming information will be stored in the right “file cabinets” (subdominant). When the poor “brain secretary” tries to retrieve information a couple of things can happen. If it can’t be found (child doesn’t know answer) the child is called stupid, retarded and teased. It is “found” slowly, again the child is called stupid, retarded, or given a “learning label” such as LD. Or the information is reversed at which time the child is called Dyslexic, LD, slow or delayed. These kids are classically the ones who study for a test one night, only to fail when they go in to take it. They took the in information but lost it when they attempted to retrieve it.

At some point, the ‘brain secretary’ will say the heck with this and dumped the file cabinets over, sit down and cry. The nervous system, especially its weak parts, respond to overwhelming stimulation by stress, and stressed systems “shut down”. We see this as tantrums, ‘melt down’, frustration, tears and failure. These children neglect to remember chores, homework or possession’s, yet can remember what color dress mother wore on Christmas two years ago. These individuals are not lacking innate intelligence. They are smart but stuck with an imprisoned intelligence.

In the past, if a child was left-handed they were forced to use the right-hand. Everyone probably has heard of someone in this situation. Thankfully, this practice is no longer around. The reason being that MANY, MANY children who had been forced lost their ability to speak. The brain was messed up so bad it actually lost function. If you have a left-handed child, under no circumstances make them right-handed. Handiness is an innate, inborn occurrence and shouldn’t be messed with.

Language is a function of the dominant hemisphere, and if the child is disorganized, he often has a handicap in terms of language function. Many children who lack cortical-hemispheric dominance often have good music abilities. Music is a function of the sub-dominant hemisphere.

Learning problems affected by dominance are things like they can’t find the answer they’re looking for; know something today but not tomorrow; and same math problem has many different answers.

Emotionality is a function of the sub-dominant. The child falls apart under pressure; or may wet the bed (can also be a food sensitivity).

CAN LEARN designs programs to stimulate the necessary areas and re-train the ‘brain’s secretary” to efficiently, and in an organized method store information.

3. Coordination, vestibular and “motor planning”: Movement reflects our neural organization and provides stimulation to the system

Weakness in the vestibular system (inner ear) which supports and regulates such function as listening dynamics, use of the eyes, balancing, feeling at ease with our bodies in space, having an appropriate state of readiness in our resting muscles. It is also integrates with systems that govern breathing, pulse, etc. On the out put level, a child may have difficulty processing various elements of a situation and acting up on those that require response in a self-regulated way due to problems such as:

Insufficient coordination between the two sides of the body and the brain.
Immature reflex inhibition

Sometimes the brain doesn’t know where it is in space. Is he standing up, lying down, rolling over, etc. If the brain doesn’t know where it is in space it won’t be able to move about in an organized, coordinated way.

The brain must also know where every part, muscle, cell is in the body. Sometimes, the brain isn’t aware of different muscles or organs. Many speech problems occur, in part, because the brain isn’t familiar with the different muscles needed such as the lips, tongue, voice box, inside of mouth, teeth, etc.

Most “labeled” children have weak finger and arm muscles which cause difficulty with fine motor activities like snap, button, hold a pencil correctly, tie their shoes.

Many children labeled Dysgraphic or with hand-eye coordination

Have a double issue. Not only is the brain not sure it has or verily aware of the finger muscles but the hand and eyes aren’t working together and low processing ability.

When a child skips or rushes through developmental stages such as creeping and crawling or the tactile system isn’t stimulated enough gaps in large motor skills and proprioception can be observed.

The child will have difficulty walking (awkward, limp arms, sort of drag the tight muscles, skip, do jumping jacks, run without tripping or hop. The child may stand on your feet, not know his ‘space’, or bump into furniture or walls as he walk. The child may have great difficulty climbing out of the backseat of a car, over the tailgate of a truck or turn around in a small space. For no apparent reason, he may trip, fall or hurt himself, even when every protective measure you can up with has been in place.

Skipping and jumping jacks require the use of both sides of the brain together; as does typing or playing the piano.

The vestibular system directs ocular (eye) muscles. Most times, if a child has coordination and vestibular difficulties they will also have a strabismus or convergence problem. There is a unity to the senses. Irregularities in one area may resonate symptomatically in others.

When the systems that support vision or the sense of position in space are not strong enough then reading and math and general organization and efficiency may suffer.

Going back to the developmental stages that had been skip, interrupted or halted with a specific frequency, intensity and duration will, in most cases, eliminate the dysorganization of the Central Nervous System. Now let’s change gears and look at the learning environment.

4. THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: None of these individuals are stupid or dumb; they just don’t have access to what they know.

Traditionally, professionals identify to categorize—Identify so as to treat.

Special education does dishonorable service to all of its students and families. You know the routine. First, they put the child through grueling hours of testing to identify their weakness. Then you are told they have been identified as having Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Auditory Processing Disorders, etc, and that there is no cure. Of course not, they don’t have a disease. The recommendation is special education placement.

Families and children are stigmatized by the label because they are segregated and thrust into an abnormal environment that makes it virtually impossible for them to learn normal, appropriate behaviors. Instead of having a great opportunity to succeed they have even less chance. Their work load is reduced, expectations lowered, they use a different curriculum than their peers and they are isolated from them. This practice rolls down to the family where they reduces expectations and don’t give the necessary opportunity for development to the child.

Relative to educating the child, first educate the brain

Build brains that are good working efficient brains that take in information well, and store information well, so they can think so they can process well. Then input knowledge and they will be able to take that knowledge, do something with it, and function well for the rest of their lives.

Many students are in learning environments inappropriate for them. The pace is TOO SLOW or the material covered is below their intellectual level. Such a child needs to be challenged and stimulated, and he is not receiving this in his present learning environment. Many students are in a learning environment inappropriate to their learning style. For example, when you place a child who is a visual learner in a classroom atmosphere with an auditory approach to reading such as phonics the child will often fail; not because he is incapable of learning to read but because he is a visual learner and has been placed in an auditory program. Often it is discovered that the child not only could read, but actually was reading above the current grade level. Many preschools and kindergarten children have learned ‘sight’ reading and have been tested on their grasp of phonics rather than their individual ability to read.

Go with the strength while strengthening the weakness. If the child is a visual learner teach through the visual channel while strengthening the auditory or vise versa.

A learning environment which is challenging, positive, rich in stimulating activities and geared to the individual’s learning style will be the a big step in eliminating the learning struggles.

Goals of Home Programs

First, the true expert on your child’s learning struggles and situation is YOU, the parent. Rapid advancement is not as difficult as it may sound, because concurrently we are improving the child’s neurological functions, enabling him to absorb information and process it at a much faster rate. We also design the academic program to fit the needs of each individual child. Most programs for the ‘Struggling Learning” can be completed in two hours a day, including academics.

The future can be bright for those children if the core problem itself is treated and not the symptoms, of the core problem.

Toni Hager, trained Neurodevelopmental Specialist and founder of CAN LEARN does neurodevelopmental and learning evaluations. Evaluations access the level of brain function as found on the developmental profile in the three main sensory areas of tactile, auditory, and visual; including processing as well as the expressive areas of manual, mobility and language. Social/behavior and academic achievement testing are also accessed. An individualized in-home program is designed addressing your child’s needs; and, you, the parent, are taught how to implement the entire program. Re-evaluations are done every four (4) months to modify and adjust the program as the brain becomes organized.

For more information contact the CAN LEARN office. The application/history form and fee schedule is on the website, fill it out as completely as possible and mail it along with your deposit check to the CAN LEARN office.

References: “Learning Disabled” Child Journal of National Academy for Child Development, 1986, vol. 6, no. 8 Robert J. Doman, Jr.

The real tragedy is many individuals are
attempting to cope with unidentified neurological dysorganization that does not need to exist.

CAN LEARN combines, commitment, knowledge, training, empowerment, and on-going support to the client and family allowing hope for the individual’s successful future.